


Little Deaths

by TheLionInMyBed



Series: Raised By Wolves [9]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Awkward Boners, Awkward Conversations, Awkward First Times, Awkward Kissing, Awkward Romance, M/M, this is just really fucking awkward generally
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-19
Updated: 2017-03-23
Packaged: 2018-10-08 02:07:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10375458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLionInMyBed/pseuds/TheLionInMyBed
Summary: After killing a god (sort of), and saving a town (okay, they're working on it), Khazri and Imrael take a moment or two to lick their wounds (and other things).





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> All my love to June for betaing <3

“Why,” Imrael said snottily, “when you were doused in freezing water - twice! - drowned, stabbed, had the living _shit_ kicked out of you - that’s the medical term - and almost bled to death, am _I_ the one who’s sick? Does that seem fair to you?” He coughed to make his point.

“You don’t eat enough vegetables,” said Khazri, pausing on the deertrack to look back at him.

“I’m vegetarian!” That triggered a bout of coughing severe enough that he had to stop walking and lean against a tree.

“Maybe that’s the problem,” Khazri said when Imrael had recovered enough to straighten up. “You’re the doctor, tell me what to do.”

The truth, as they both knew, was that there was precious little that could be done. They’d been walking sunrise to sunset for the past five days. Longer when they could for Khazri could see in the dark, how well exactly Imrael wasn’t sure, but certainly well enough to lead them safely even after nightfall. They were both exhausted, Khazri injured, Imrael sick, their food all but gone. But they didn’t have time to rest; their own dwindling rations aside, the town of Milcom was starving and if they didn’t reach Dawnwood soon enough to send back supplies, there would be no Milcom left to relieve.

“It’s really not that bad,” Imrael said. “I’m just being dramatic. Let’s pick up the pace.”

***

He wasn’t just being dramatic. It was almost definitely bronchitis judging by his difficulty breathing and the violently yellow mucus he had to stop and cough up every few paces.

Beryl, who usually ranged ahead, had dropped back to walk beside him, waiting with him every time he stopped to gasp for air and nudging him away from potholes and stray branches.

He walked straight into Khazi who had stopped on the path in front of him and had to catch him by the collar to keep them both from falling over. “We’re making camp,” he said when they had both recovered their balance.

“What? No! There’s still another two hours of daylight!” Imrael had been lagging, leaving long, sluggish drag marks in place of footprints, but now he picked up his feet and stomped past him. “I’m fine! Don’t coddle me.” The extra activity made him wheeze all the harder.

“I don’t like the weather,” Khazri said, not following. He was almost certainly lying but in that moment, with his head swimming and his every breath cutting down his throat like knives, Imrael wasn’t inclined to argue. “And my ribs hurt. I’ll get a fire going. You can take inventory.”

“That is a _terrible_ attempt at subterfuge. We don’t have anything left to take inventory off.”

“Count the tent,” Khazri said, setting his pack down. “Twice to be sure.”

Imrael did not count the tent, because that was stupid, but he didn’t do much of anything else either. When he’d been walking it had been a matter of putting one foot in front of the other no matter how much he coughed or how his skin itched like ants were crawling under it. Once he’d sat down, it was near impossible to think of anything sensible to do.

“Can’t you...magic yourself better?” Khazri asked, setting down an armful of firewood.

“I don’t trust myself to,” Imrael said morosely. “Feeling this shitty, I might accidentally turn my lungs inside out.” That and he was reluctant to part with what little energy he’d recouped after spending himself twice over cleaning up the Milcom fiasco. Some he’d used to speed Khazri’s healing but the rest he saved. It wasn’t that he thought Khazri would hurt himself again - there had been a perverse sort of logic to his previous attempt - but still. Finding his friend bleeding out in the snow, skin gone the colour of dirty ice from cold and shock, and _knowing_ that he didn’t have the strength left to fix it wasn’t an experience Imrael cared to repeat.

But Khazri was fine now, finer than he had any right to be, which was more than could be said for the other people Imrael had helped to drag from the water and lay out upon the beach.

“You’re shivering,” Khazri said. “Jeff!” The wolf looked up from the branch he was chewing and, dragging it behind him, came and draped himself over Imrael’s lap. “I’ll light the fire,” Khazri continued, businesslike, as though Jeff hadn’t just knocked over his careful pile of wood and kindling.

“I’ll light it,” Imrael said as Khazri reset the fire. “It looks a bit wet to kindle.” Khazri gave him a calculating look and then stepped back with a nod.

Imrael concentrated, snapped his fingers and nothing happened. He snapped again.

“It happens to every man,” said Khazri, who was, distressingly, developing a sense of humour.

“Quiet you.” Lighting a fire was one of the easiest tricks in any hedge witch or street conjurer's arsenal. Tiredness was no excuse and he’d barely even _done_ anything at Milcom, just watched as a monster rose and people died and Khazri fought for his life-

The fire caught with a whoomph that set Khazri hopping back from it, his shadow black and huge against the snow. Imrael settled back, trying for smug and hoping he got away with it when really he was relying on Jeff to prop him upright.

Jeff and his sister had torn apart one of the cultists at the stone, started eating when she was still alive and then, unsatisfied, gorged themselves on the bodies washed out of the lake. Imrael pushed the wolf away.

“I helped kill them,” he blurted. “We shouldn’t have done that, we shouldn’t have forced the issue, if we’d just left and told Lord Dorian, let him bring soldiers-”

Across the fire, Khazri wrapped his cloak about himself, ducking his head so that Imrael saw nothing but the shadow of his hood. “So that they could kill them for us?”

“There should have been a trial.”

“Maybe. But. No prison, no supplies to keep them fed.”

“Maybe if I’d thought of that then I could use it as justification. But I didn’t - I _wanted_ them to pay for what they did.  I hardly even tried to talk them down, I didn’t _think_. There was no justice in what I did.”

“You’re sick.” Khazri moved around to him, tugged off a glove and pressed icy fingers to Imrael’s temple.

He flinched away. “That doesn’t mean I’m wrong. Does this not bother you at all?”

Khazri shrugged inelegantly. “You gave them a chance. We defended ourselves. We could have handled it better. Next time we will.” Gracelessly spoken but for him it was quite a speech.

“Next time?” Imrael said, letting himself be drawn because he _was_ sick and he didn’t want this argument, just wanted to lie down. “Wasn’t that bad enough?”

“If we found another Milcom, another Wyne, would you walk away?”

Imrael sighed. The answer to _that_ was horribly easy. “No.”

Still crouched beside him, Khazri drew back his hand and, despite the cold, Imrael was sorry for its loss. “I’ll put the tent up. Distract Jeff?”

Jeff raised his head to look at Imrael beseechingly and he allowed the wolf onto his lap, instantly grateful for the warmth of his shaggy grey coat. “Since when are you the one that has everything figured out?”

“Enjoy it while it lasts.”

Imrael scratched Jeff’s ears and watched the flames as Khazri bustled in the background, insufferably resilient.

Even limping he moved well. Even, Imrael thought darkly, while killing he’d been graceful. He hadn’t been paying attention all the times he’d seen Khazri undressed before - usually because one or both of them was in danger of dying - but he knew that, underneath those ugly layers of wool and leather, Khazri was slim and leanly muscled.

They’d kissed beside the lake - beside the corpse of a dead god - but nothing since. It hadn’t been the greatest kiss, covered in gore and stinking mud as they were. They’d both been exhausted and nervous and neither had known where to put their hands - Khazri from inexperience, Imrael from not knowing if there was any part of Khazri’s body that wasn’t bruised or cut or broken. Still, it certainly hadn’t been the _worst_ kiss - that dubious honour went to Lila Vestri and an evening that had ended in hypoxia and a head injury - and Imrael would certainly like to repeat it.

But they were too cold, too tired, too sick. Now it was almost too awkward to bring it up. He did it anyway. “We need to share body heat. I’m a doctor.”

“You’re diseased,” Khazri said, wrinkling his nose. “And you have Jeff.”

Imrael filched a twig from their store of firewood and flicked it into the woods, sending the wolf bounding after it in a flurry of snow and pine needles. “Oops,” Imrael said. “You’d better come here.” He leant over and looped an arm about Khazri’s waist, lightly enough it could be shrugged off. Khazri tensed and then relaxed against him with a sigh that might have been weariness or annoyance or pleasure.

Not a moment later, he was tense again. “Are we- You said- Um. At the lake- ” Imrael smoothed a hand through Khazri’s hair before he could start pulling at it himself, and was relieved to feel him lean into it. “What _are_ we?”

“Friends,” Imrael said, biting his tongue against the urge to say something flippant and dismissive. “That before anything else. But, once I can do it without triggering a coughing fit, I’d really like to suck your cock.”

“Oh,” Khazri said. It was more a breath than speech. And then he writhed out of Imrael’s grip and away - for one horrible moment Imrael thought he was going to run off into the woods _again_ \- to drop into a crouch a few feet away. “Oh. But.”

Bereft and suddenly cold, Imrael wrapped his arms about himself. “But what? This doesn’t have to be complicated. I want you and you, I assume, want me. You’re sneaky as hell but I _know_ how many knives you have and I know what was poking me in the back last night wasn’t one of them.”

“I’m sorry,” Khariz muttered. He looked so absurdly guilty Imrael almost laughed. He didn’t though; with Khazri, flustered embarrassment tipped so easily into genuine shame.

“I don’t want you to be _sorry_ about it,” he said carefully. “Next time it happens, I want you to roll over and do something about it.”

If Imrael hadn’t known what he was agreeing to when Khazri wandered into his surgery cradling a timber wolf in his arms and saved his life, there had been time enough to learn in the interim. This had all begun because he had a weakness for the tragic and mysterious, for distant women with sharp, cold eyes and pretty men with awful secrets and penchants for brooding in the rain. It was unhealthy, he knew, to be so drawn to sharp edges and open wounds but he couldn’t seem to help himself. And Khazri, with his silences, his disappearances, his dark eyes and shadowy past, was every awful thing he craved.

It had continued though because Khazri was shy on top of being strange, so obviously attracted to him while so oblivious to his flirting. Because he brought Imrael presents - silphium and bezoars and snake-stones, gods knew where he found them - and mumbled, embarrassed, that they might be useful. Because he was dangerous but never felt unsafe.

For all those reasons Imrael waited patiently, with only a minimum of coughing and fidgeting, while Khazri, half lit by the warm glow of their campfire, made up his damn fool mind.

“Yes.”

Imrael was blowing his nose into a scrap of linen and almost didn’t hear him. “Really?”

“Yes.” Khazri had looked more certain facing down murderous cultists but he’d not run then and didn’t now. “I want you. To- _um_.”

“I really did think this was going to be more complicated.”

“Well if you want me to play harder to get-” _There_ was that nascent sense of humour.

“Nope.” Imrael held out his arms because Khazri’s tiny smile was adorable and because the fire was dying down and it really was fucking freezing. “Get back over here and keep me warm.”


	2. Chapter 2

Khazri kept waiting for him to take it back.

He waited long past the point that Imrael had stopped sniffing and coughing and started giving him pointed looks. Waited, indeed, until they’d stumbled upon a ramshackle old coaching house run by a ramshackle old woman, and he no longer had the excuse of sharing blankets for any of it.

In the face of hot food - more food, indeed, than they’d had in weeks - the chance to take a bath and _finally_ wash the stink of Lake Milcom’s waters from their skin, and the company of other people, Khazri had precious little to offer. He left Imrael in the taproom, laughing and sharing bawdy stories with the landlady, and went off to make the most of a bed more comfortable than blankets spread upon the dirt.

He _was_ tired anyway, and there were arrows to fletch and blades to hone, which was not a euphemism no matter how his mind seized the thought and ran with it.

Still. The dogs were gone away into the woods to hunt. Just in case.

The rhythmic scrape of the whetstone was a comfort. His mother had liked to care for her own blades and Moire the hunter had done the same and so the sound ran through all his earliest memories of home and safety like a lullaby.

By the time he’d sharpened every blade, he was feeling composed enough he thought that maybe he could sleep. And then there were footsteps in the corridor, fumbling at the door and all his carefully hoarded calm was gone as though it had never been.

“Were you just sitting here in the dark, playing with your knives?” said Imrael, leaning back against the doorframe in a manner that had to be calculated. His eyes were bright, his cheeks flushed and Khazri swallowed and looked away.

“Yes.”

“Oh sweetheart. Has anyone ever told you that you’re intensely creepy?”

“Several people. At length. You said it yesterday actually,” Khazri said dryly, holding the last knife up to catch the weak candlelight. It was perfectly sharp and, reluctantly, he slid it back into its sheath. Now he had nothing to do with his hands.

“Well has anyone ever told you that your evil little smirk is adorable?” Imrael asked, flopping onto the other bed. It was short enough that his feet hung over the edge, and he wiggled them mournfully.

“That you neglected to mention.”

With a groan and a creak of protest from the bed, Imrael rolled over onto his stomach and pressed his face into the pillow. “There’s only so many ways I can say it, Khazri.”

“You’re beautiful.”

“Eh?” Imrael raised his head and squinted at him, unsure what he’d heard.

Khazri hadn’t meant to say it but it was much too late to take it back, and it was true besides. “You’re beautiful. I should have said it before.”

“I like hearing it now.” Imrael’s voice had gone low and rough in a way that raised the hairs on the back of Khazri’s neck. He thought he wanted- He didn’t know- What if-

He swallowed down the fear. “Come here?” he said and reached out.

It seemed easy when Imrael did it - two swift steps across the space between them and then he was there, body warm and solid upon the bed beside him, hair tickling Khazri’s cheek as he leant in. Some part of him wanted to flee, to check a knife was close to hand, but the greater part of him said _yes_ to this, to everything, and let his eyes fall closed and his lips part.

Before the lake, Khazri hadn’t kissed anyone in a long time and he’d never kissed anyone and meant it. He was so focused on trying to get it right - not too wet, don’t clash teeth, the correct amount of tongue - that enjoying it didn’t seem that important. He knew his lips were chapped and he wasn’t sure where to put his hands and he really wasn’t good enough at this-

Imrael must have read the hesitation on his lips, because he pulled away and smiled. “Relax,” he said. “I’m not keeping score.”

The second attempt was better. He wasn’t really any calmer but he tried to focus less on his own failings and more on Imrael. The taste of his mouth - those awful cigarettes he always smoked - the warmth of his body and the slick movement of his tongue. Khazri still wasn’t sure what he wanted to happen or how much he dared, but Imrael’s mouth was soft against his, and the feeling of his hands carding through Khazri’s hair was good enough that maybe he didn’t care.

They broke the kiss so that Imrael could fumble with the buttons of his shirt. Khazri helped him with them, starting from the bottom so that their fingers met in a tangle in the middle. Imrael laughed and flopped backwards, dragging Khazri down so that he found himself straddling Imrael’s hips. There were hands sliding up beneath his tunic, fingers running softly down his spine and Khazri froze, torn between flinching away and pressing into the touch.

Imrael stilled too, hands cool but growing warmer, thumbs circling against Khazri’s skin like a man calming a skittish horse. “Alright?” he said.

It should not have been as soothing as it was - it was shameful that he wanted this, more shameful still to run from it now and Khazri owed Imrael too much to stop. He nodded, willing himself to relax and let Imrael slide his shirt further up his back until it bunched under his arms. “Take it off?” Imrael asked and Khazri wanted to say no but found himself nodding again and ducking so Imrael could slide it over his head. He did it so slowly Khazri wanted to snap at him to get it over with, until suddenly the shirt was on the floor and he was defenceless. The room was cool enough to make his skin prickle, but he didn’t let himself shiver. His right hand drifted up to cover the scar on his shoulder, but he stopped himself. That was cowardice, and there was no point when Imrael had already seen it.

To his credit, Imrael didn’t seem to notice, and nor did he pointedly _not_ notice which would have been just as bad. He grinned wolfishly, his eyes roving over Khazri’s body with an intensity that made him shift uneasily. “Damn,” he said softly. “It’s a crime I haven’t seen you like this until now.”

Khazri felt his face heat and looked away. “You’ve seen me naked,” he said at last because he had to say something.

“You were unconscious and half dead from hypothermia, hardly the time for ogling. Credit me with a little professionalism,” Imrael said, running his hands up Khazri’s sides to loop them around his neck. “This is different. You’re not trying to kick me for a start.”

“Did I ever apologise for-”

“Less remorse, more sex,” Imrael said, drawing him down into another kiss. In contrast to the chill in the air, Imrael’s body felt burning hot, skin like sun warmed bronze under his fingers. He could feel the other man’s erection pressing against his thigh and his own cock hardening in response.

Arousal cut through him, sharp enough it took his breath away. He’d worked so hard to mute everything, to take fear and anger and helplessness and smooth away the edges until the world was dull and grey and safe. Now the intensity of his need frightened him but, while he was still nervous, still ashamed, more than anything he did not want to stop.

Imrael’s fingers tangled in his hair, drawing his head back. _He could slit my throat like this. It would be so easy_. Khazri didn’t resist though, even as he felt warm breath raise the tiny hairs on his neck.

There wasn’t a blade, of course there wasn’t, just the press of lips against the corner of his jaw and then a languid trail of kisses down to his collarbone. Imrael’s mouth brushed against the raised scar tissue on his shoulder but he didn’t seem to care and maybe Khazri didn’t have to either. _Maybe he likes it. He’s fascinated by broken things. Why else would he want you?_ And then Imrael nipped at the tip of one of his ears and the thought went out of his head. He was sensitive enough there that the touch left him writhing and biting back a moan and he felt rather than heard Imrael’s laugh in the vibrations of his throat. He rocked his hips, heat pooling in his groin at the friction. Imrael’s hands were at his waist urging him on, and then dipped lower to cup his arse, making his breath catch.

They separated for a moment and Imrael kicked off his trousers then lay back amongst the blankets, languid and confident and too handsome by far. His skin glowed a warm amber in the candlelight, his long hair an inky pool about his head. He was lithe and spare-limbed, graceful as a young tree, and he smiled as he reached for Khazri, as he always did.

And Khazri, as he always did, let himself be drawn, fitting easily into the circle of his arms. “Show me what you want,” Imrael said into his ear, breath tickling. It set him back; he’d hoped that Imrael would take the lead on the basis that he actually knew what he was doing but Khazri could hardly say that now. He’d come too far to hesitate.

He pressed a last kiss to Imrael’s mouth - he still wasn’t any good at it but surely better at that than what was to come - and ducked his head lower to trace the line of his throat with lips and tongue. He could feel the pulse drumming under Imrael’s skin and taste the salt of his sweat. He let his hands skim down over the flat planes of Imrael’s stomach, dropping lower to close his fingers around the length of his shaft.

He’d never touched another man like this but how different could it be? He stroked along it, gently at first, and then firmer when Imrael groaned and thrust into his hand.

It was like a fight, he thought vaguely. Calculations and strategies that came to nothing in the moment, supplanted by instinct and reaction to the feel of your opponent’s body against your own.

He understood fights. He knew how to win them.

Imrael reached up to touch his face but Khazri used his free hand to catch his wrist. He drew his fingers into his mouth and circled them with his tongue, careful not to interrupt the rhythm of his strokes.

Pinned beneath him, Imrael writhed, fingers tangled in the bedding. It was only an illusion of control, only what Imrael was prepared to give, but it was intoxicating all the same.

“Is this alright?” he asked carefully.

“Gods, yes,” Imrael gasped. There was no one else on this floor to hear them - Khazri had checked - but he still blushed and flinched at the way Imrael moaned and swore. It went against all of his instincts but there was something appealing about Imrael’s lack of inhibitions, and even more so in the knowledge that Imrael could have anyone he wanted but it was Khazri’s name on his lips.

He ran his thumb over the head of Imrael’s cock, spreading the gathering moisture and wondered, with a thrill of trepidation, what it would be like to take it inside him. He didn’t have the nerve right then but there would, he hoped, be other chances. The thought made his own cock twitch and his muscles clench.

“You look so intense,” Imrael got out, with no little effort. “Like you’re about to kill someone.” He didn’t sound displeased. His eyes were fogged, breath coming in harsh pants, and Khazri knew he must be close. His hips bucked and Khazri pressed him down onto the bed, holding him in place as he brought him off with a final, rough jerk, stroking him through until he was spent.

Imrael spilled into his palm, warm as blood, and Khazri took a moment to savour the victory, his opponent lying breathless and vanquished beneath him. He felt a little shaky with adrenaline and he was still achingly hard but he felt more together than he had in a long time.

He smoothed a few clinging strands of hair back from Imrael’s face and then practical concerns prevailed and he leant over to wipe his hand on one of the rags he used to clean his knives.

Slim fingers tugged at his waistband and he turned back to find Imrael smirking up at him. “Did you think we were finished here? Honestly, all that and you’re still half dressed. Take these-” Imrael punctuated by yanking at the lacings, “-off. You’re ridiculous and I want to suck your cock.”

“You don’t have to,” Khazri said weakly, fumbling with the drawstring, unsure of himself all over again.

“Do you want me to?” Imrael sat up a little, suddenly serious. The warmth and ease were gone and Khazri didn’t know how to bring them back.

His tongue was dry, stuck to the roof of his mouth and all he could do was nod. He’d done worse things than this and his need was almost painful now.

He let Imrael roll them over so that he was on top and slide his trousers down over his hips, embarrassed enough he had to look away. He stayed propped up on his elbows, feeling horribly vulnerable as Imrael pressed his legs apart to kneel between them, stripped bare in a way that went beyond his nakedness.

The first touch, Imrael’s fingers tracing the jut of his hipbone, made him jump and they shared a laugh which went some way to defusing the awkwardness. He was more prepared for the feel of hot breath and then the brush of lips that followed, if not the way his skin tingled in the wake of it.

Imrael moved over his body, tongue flicking against a nipple, brushing the inside of his thigh, everywhere but where he needed it. Khazri was an inch away from taking matters into his own hands but that would be Imrael’s victory, so he gritted his teeth and endured.

“You’re gorgeous,” Imrael said innocently, pausing his exploration of Khazri’s navel.

“And you’re cruel,” he replied - moaned in truth.

“You only had to ask,” Imrael said, grinning, and then closed his mouth over his cock.

Khazri kept himself from gasping but it was a struggle to remember why that was important against the sudden, impossible heat, and then Imrael brought his tongue into play, and remembering anything at all was beyond him.

He could barely breathe past the working of Imrael’s hands and throat. His body thrummed with tension, a bowstring pulled taught for a shot he didn’t dare release and his fingers caught in Imrael’s hair as he tried to make him stop, make him take it deeper, _something_.

“Please,” he choked, not sure what he was asking for, so close it hurt, while something in him still resisted. His body was the one thing he could trust to obey him, and now Imrael was teasing that control away from him with casual ease, taking him apart with dextrous hands and a clever tongue. He clawed at the sheets beneath him, struggling to hold himself together.

Imrael pulled back for a moment, and maybe he did understand because his voice was gentle. “Let go, Khazri,” he said. “Trust me.” He took him back into his mouth, tongue flicking over the head, hands moving slow and rhythmic but it was those words more than anything else that undid him.

The physical release was not half so overwhelming as the knowledge Imrael wanted him to feel it, wanted _him_ , and it was all he could do to stay silent as Imrael coaxed him through it. His arms gave out and he collapsed onto the bed, mind gone blank, body trembling from the aftershocks while Imrael swallowed and licked him clean. It didn’t feel like submission, or loss, or any of the things he’d feared. It was just good, shockingly, uncomplicatedly so.

He was dimly aware of the bed creaking and shifting beneath him as Imrael moved up to lie beside him, warm arm draped across his chest.

“Are you alright?” Imrael had to ask him twice before he collected himself enough to nod. “Overwhelmed?”

“Mm.”

“I do have that effect on people,” Imrael said with smugness Khazri felt wasn’t entirely undeserved. And then more seriously; “Do you want to talk?”

“No,” he said, meaning it. “It was nice.”

“‘Nice’?” Imrael huffed, warm breath ruffling Khazri’s hair. “You have a gift for understatement.”

“Don’t want you to get too full of yourself,” he murmured into Imrael’s collarbone. “Maybe you’ll do better next time.”

“Plenty of other things I can be full of,” Imrael said, smirked when Khazri blushed and then stole all the blankets. But he didn’t dispute that there would be a next time and he still had his arm wrapped around Khazri’s waist as he fell asleep.

That felt like a victory too.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr in the [obvious place](http://thelioninmybed.tumblr.com)!


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